Trinity Industries 2Q beats Street

Trinity Industries, Inc. late Wednesday, July 31, 2013, posted second-quarter earnings of $84 million, or $1.06 per share, surpassing second-quarter 2012 income of $67.8 million, or 84 cents per share.

Results easily trumped Wall Street consensus analysts of 95 cents per share, falling on the high end of Trinity's own estimates earlier in the year.

Revenue of $1.1 billion was up 7% from a year ago, and also surpassed analyst estimates of $1.017 billion.

Trinity said its order backlog was $5.1 billion, powered in large measure by the demand for tank cars to handle crude-by-rail movements.

"While we were impressed with TRN's performance in the quarter, we think the real story is TRN's 2013 guidance increase to an adjusted $4.12-$4.32 (consensus $3.99) from an adjusted $3.72-$3.97," KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. analyst Steve Barger wrote in a note to clients late Wednesday.

"We think a guidance increase of this magnitude is unusual from TRN this early in the year, and we think it likely reflects substantial confidence in both operational execution and backlog visibility," Barger said.